A moving remembrance of a hardscrabble journey from wandering to fulfillment.
A young man struggles to find himself after leaving home at 14 in this memoir.
What’s unsaid often leaves the strongest impression, as Tye suggests in this unflinching account of growing up in 1970s Texas. The book’s title nods to the Austin neighborhood where his father moved him and his brother, Kenny, in June 1970. But the author’s hopes for stability there—after attending eight schools and living in 10 different areas—were crushed by the abusive actions of Beulah, his new stepmother. When she broke all his record albums and demanded that he quit his after-school library job, the author, weary of a life that was “turning into a fight of old versus new,” left home for good. The move would consign him to sleeping in secluded areas or on friends’ couches, even as he continued attending school and worked toward a better future. He quickly began maximizing his street smarts (“I learned that people treated me better if I didn’t have my pack with me”), which enabled him to gain a string of entry-level jobs and more stable living situations. However, the era’s casual feel-good ethos left the author feeling frustrated and unfulfilled. After he asked his latest girlfriend if they were in love, her jarring response (“Don’t get confused. It’s just sex”) only strengthened the loner’s emotional armor. Meanwhile, he was always aware that one mistake could land him in jail or back under Beulah’s unforgiving control. The point is driven home by one of the book’s funniest scenes, in which the author sheepishly confesses his age (just 16) to a clueless server demanding to see his driver’s license (“It got really quiet at our table”).
When he could no longer fend off adult life, the author decided to join the U.S. Marine Corps—a life-changing move that would cost him another woman’s affections but would also point him toward his future, settled career. The decision sets up the most moving portions of this memoir, as when Tye unexpectedly reconnects and reconciles with his father, now divorced from Beulah and filled with regret at not doing more to get his son back home. As his father’s health began to fail due to a recurrence of cancer, the pair had to face the demons that had pulled their relationship apart, as the author effectively recollects: “All those feelings—betrayal, fear, anger, loneliness—had gone into boxes on a shelf in the back of my mind. Now we had opened the box.” How they navigated such a task will hit home for any reader who’s faced a similar wrenching situation, and Tye’s heartbreakingly honest narrative style will prompt nods of agreement with one of the book’s core theses: “If there is one thing I know about, it is accomplishing the mission.” This combination of mission and memoir highlights the power of forgiveness to repair shattered lives—and, in doing so, may help some readers to find their own higher purpose.
A moving remembrance of a hardscrabble journey from wandering to fulfillment.Pub Date: March 19, 2026
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Yuma River Press
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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